Video: Obama scratches mouth with middle finger, earns banner treatment on Drudge

If it was intentional, it was designed to be plausibly deniable, so one kind of has to let it drop. Yet it does seems like too much of a coincidence that Obama does it twice exactly when he mentions how wonderful his opponent is at the end of long campaign, but what are you gonna do?

It’s a personality feature of egotistical pricks to do this type of audacious stuff, though. Bill Clinton would talk his opponents and close out the conversation by saying, “Nice tie” which would elicit a thank-you, whereupon Bill’s entourage would laugh. Turns out, “nice tie” was code for “f*** you.” Narcissists with sociopathic tendencies — a personality type common amongst successful politicians — feel a deep need to do this “audacious” stuff because it makes them feel in control and superior to their audience and bonds them with people in on the joke.

I had a boss once who ran a business and occasionally would run the cash register if the place was busy and would do stuff like say to a distracted customer rooting about in her purse for change, “That’ll be ten pounds and thirty f***ing pence.” When the nonplussed customer would look up and say, “Excuse me?” he would adjust and say, “Ten pounds and thirty five pence, please” with a puppy dog look. It was so audacious and jerky, no customer ever called him on it. He was a very successful guy. He got a buzz out of doing it and it showed the employees how in control he was that he could get away with anything including insulting customers right to their faces. He would have made a great politician.

shazbat on November 3, 2008 at 2:25 PM